Tizón – the young Egyptian vulture tagged last September in Spain – is still in western Mali, in the same wider region where he spent most of his time since he crossed the Sahara Desert last October.
Tizón was found disoriented and suffering malnutrition last August in Extremadura, and after a short period of rehabilitation was released on the 24th September in the Sierra de Hornachos with a tag, set up by the Junta de Extremadura (the regional government), AMUS (a local nature conservation NGO) and the VCF.
Tizón quickly migrated through Morocco and crossed the desert through Mauritania but then spent a few weeks in October on the Mauritania-Mali border. He then embarked on a long trip, first going south (almost reaching Bamako, Mali´s capital), then flying East into Burkina Faso, before returning west to the Mali-Mauritania border, continuing all the way west into Senegal, before making a U-turn back to western Mali, where he is at the moment (see the map).
Adult and immature Egyptian vultures have already started their migration back to Europe – the first arrivals in the Iberian Peninsula were reported in the end of February. However, juvenile Egyptian vultures often stay one or two years in Africa before their first migration back north. Will Tizón stay in his preferred wintering grounds in western Mali, or will he try to come to Europe this spring?
Stay tuned for more developments…
